Ancient Contact by Volcanic Giraffe

made by Volcanic Giraffe for LD36 (JAM)

Controls:
Tab - switch between mouse/keyboard
Left/Right/Mouse movement - move saucer
Space/Left mouse button - engage tractor beam

Welcome to Galazon mobile, inc., Domination Engineering department. Your mission is to improve galanet coverage in this sector by using Self-Building Boostable Magma-Powered Neutrino Projector towers. Proceed to the building site now.

".. thanks for changing me pal, I owe you one. Don't worry, just drop the payload on the ground, and thing will basically build itself. Throw some matter into convertors and it will be even faster. Easy as piece of momma's phasdragl"

Note: for increased fun we left out developer spawner keys enabled. You can find them if you want to play around.

Team Volcanic Giraffe, ladies and gentlemen:
Alexey Grishin - code, music, sounds
Ruslan Kibets - code, PR
Anatoly Sazanov - art

Web	http://bytemapgames.net/projects/ld/ld36/index.html
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=111242

Feedback

DragonZBW (SparkLight Games)

30. Aug 2016 · 02:50 UTC

I love everything about this! Music, gameplay, especially graphics/animation. I love that you can use the magnet beam on arrows as well. Had a hard time figuring out how to actually start the game, though. I was on the start screen for a while before I noticed the button, since it was in the same art style as everything else and looked so seamless!

CartoonJenn

30. Aug 2016 · 05:27 UTC

Great art, very impressive game.

steph88

30. Aug 2016 · 07:03 UTC

Hi, nice game and congratulations ! Simple mechanics that still offered a decent amount of challenge.We're realizing a video with several games of the Ludum Dare #36. We made the same thing at the previous jam.

Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description.

colozz

30. Aug 2016 · 10:03 UTC

Well done, simple mechanics, nice art, great concept!

jackyjjc

30. Aug 2016 · 10:19 UTC

What a great idea. I like how innovative this game is. The graphics and music is good. I think the basic game mechanics is great. However, I found that the second level was too hard because too many emenies and my alien beam can't even pick up catapults? In the end i pretty much ran out of materials to use / kill the people and there were just too many people :(

🎤 Volcanic Giraffe

30. Aug 2016 · 10:49 UTC

@jackyjjc, thank you for the comment!
Here are some helpful tips:
- try to use house parts as obstacles for units
- rolling rocks are very effective as well
- you can catch arrows/stones and use it as a weapon

Ghen

30. Aug 2016 · 11:20 UTC

very unique and smooth gameplay, love the art style on the game overall

it'll probably will be more awesome if we can take root of house and trees :p

overall very enjoyable and awesome looking game

quentinus60

30. Aug 2016 · 12:08 UTC

good game ! i really like the art

raspofabs

30. Aug 2016 · 12:26 UTC

great game idea, and quite well executed. Grats. I do think it needs a bit more balancing, as I got into a state where I could play the level for a long time making no progress towards winning or losing.

jeremyfa

30. Aug 2016 · 12:38 UTC

Pretty difficult, but I like the game mechanics. I feel so bad to have killed all these little fellow! O_o

actuallycameron

30. Aug 2016 · 13:18 UTC

Amazing job! The art and SFX were very well done and it was a fun, original concept. Awesome!

cushycode

30. Aug 2016 · 13:52 UTC

Refused to react both to my mouse and my keyboard, so i listened to the splash screen music for a while, it was neat.

🎤 Volcanic Giraffe

30. Aug 2016 · 14:27 UTC

@cushycode
Awww thank you. Sorry it didn't work.
Btw did you try to click on that big green button in the corner?

tGiant

30. Aug 2016 · 21:03 UTC

Very nice, I love the way you can zoom stuff into the air and drop it on people.
Well done with this game.

blackcode

30. Aug 2016 · 21:43 UTC

Awesome game! Had some problems with controlling (mouse seemed to get stuck sometimes) but other than that it was very impressive!

I didn't manage to finish it, but had a lot of fun playing :D

olkeencole

30. Aug 2016 · 23:39 UTC

I love the art here. This would make for a really cool tower defense like game for the phone or ipad where you have to find resources but also protect the tower. And I like how you have to take the offensive using the very items you need to consume. Great job!! I hope ya'll keep working on this.
And I love developer keys. 1-6 spawn different items.

Arugin

31. Aug 2016 · 05:36 UTC

Great work, guys!

Geared Games

31. Aug 2016 · 07:26 UTC

This game was a lot of fun! Original concept, well executed and a ton of fun to play.

This was very well done, great entry!

Boberro

31. Aug 2016 · 09:01 UTC

Thanks for including both keyboard and mouse control.

cushycode

31. Aug 2016 · 14:52 UTC

Volcanic Giraffe, i didn't get that it was a clickable button! Anyway, finally I played your game for a while today using another browser (have no ideas what the problem whit the first one).

It is pretty fun and I enjoyed it's watercolor-like cartoony style. But the ability to fly out of bounds of the screen is a bit weird.

Well done!

DarkGrisen

31. Aug 2016 · 15:42 UTC

Aah! You also made an ufo game! :D
Fun game!

Mine10blox

31. Aug 2016 · 23:11 UTC

I love everything about it, until it starts sucking. enemies keep spawning but weapons (rocks, wells, etc.) don't. There's no way to progress, all the weapons get sucked into the machine and the enemies tear it down with no way to stop it. Amazing game, perfectly executed and phenomenal art. Then that happens. Good job anyway

Allthebees

31. Aug 2016 · 23:19 UTC

Awesome idea for a game, well implemented. The art was fantastic, loved the movement of the ship and the sound was fitting too. The second level was reallly hard though, and I didn't figure out a good way of killing enemies near the tower as the tower ate the materials! Good game!

MrErdalUral

31. Aug 2016 · 23:31 UTC

Nice game i liked the mechanics a lot. Good job!

Jonpul

01. Sep 2016 · 00:05 UTC

Nice job. I really enjoyed this.

teamBallShui

01. Sep 2016 · 00:10 UTC

This is a really nice game. I had much fun playing it. The idea is great. Crushing those little guys and destroying their homes was very pleasing :D

cubotrox_toni

01. Sep 2016 · 12:44 UTC

The screenshots are awesome, I like the handmade art style. But the link does not work :(

Spinach_Chicken

01. Sep 2016 · 13:02 UTC

Amazing! I love how the simple mechanic of dragging items with the beam just makes this game awesome! Great job

🎤 Volcanic Giraffe

01. Sep 2016 · 16:49 UTC

@cubotrox_toni
could you please share the browser console output?

souzacampus

01. Sep 2016 · 21:40 UTC

Hi, I´m the artist of the game Ancient Caverman. I loved your game, very fun and interesting. I loved the people attacking the flying saucer and more... to crush them with rocks!!! Congratulations!

conrad123

02. Sep 2016 · 00:30 UTC

Nice job! The graphics look great!

SimonHutchinson

02. Sep 2016 · 00:34 UTC

Whoa. Very nice work. The controls feel great, and it's just a lot of fun. Really satisfying.

Great job.

9.ar7k

02. Sep 2016 · 00:57 UTC

I really enjoyed this ^^

Thrainsa

02. Sep 2016 · 05:19 UTC

It was a funny game, I like tower defense and this one has it's one atmosphere.
I like the idea of catching the rocks to kill them and to make your tower progress.
Nice Job and nice musics

lekiy

02. Sep 2016 · 14:53 UTC

Wow very good job! Most interesting game I have seen yet!

I'm not sure whats supposed to happen when you lose but when the game restarted I seemed to be under attack by an army and had no resources to deal with it, seems like a bug to me.

tonynogo

02. Sep 2016 · 21:16 UTC

Very fun idea, gameplay is original.
Nice job! Congrats!

svyatozar

03. Sep 2016 · 10:39 UTC

Nice gameplay, very smooth kind of a tower defence.

indieyp

04. Sep 2016 · 09:24 UTC

Very addictive :)

Fisher007

04. Sep 2016 · 16:51 UTC

Haha extremely well made game. Love all the little extra feature, like the ricochet kill. :D The only issue was that it's really hard to kill the swordsmen when they reach the tower because if you want to drop something on them, it gets sucked into the lightball. Good job!

BloodJohn

05. Sep 2016 · 20:00 UTC

Funny music. It is not clear how and what to do, but the process itself is very fascinating.

Will Edwards

09. Sep 2016 · 12:13 UTC

Wow, absolutely wow :)

Very nice gameplay, very nice game. Liked the physics and the ricochets. Ended up running out of rocks.

Does it work well on ipads etc?

LooksLikeSomething

10. Sep 2016 · 10:50 UTC

Fun game! Nice job!

WERT Studio

10. Sep 2016 · 13:38 UTC

looks very good and polished but i want to kill all trees